Grilled Garlic & Orange Marinated Chicken Skewers

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Are you looking for the perfect blend of sweet and savory chicken kabobs? You will find it in my garlic & orange marinated chicken skewers recipe.

Marinated chicken and veggies on skewers. Ready for the grill

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Grilled Garlic & Orange Marinated Chicken Skewers

Garlic & Orange Chicken Kabobs

An easy sweet and savory summer chicken meal
Prep Time20 minutes
Cook Time15 minutes
Marinade3 hours
Total Time3 hours 35 minutes
Course: Main Course
Cuisine: American
Keyword: chicken kabobs, fun food, orange chicken, summer meal, sweet and savory chicken
Servings: 4 people
Calories:

Equipment

  • small mixing bowl
  • medium bowl
  • measuring spoons
  • measuring cups
  • sharp knife
  • Cutting Board
  • metal skewers
  • serving platter

Ingredients

  • 1 cup orange juice
  • 1/4 cup lemon juice
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce or amino acids
  • 1/4 cup olive oil
  • 2 tbsp crushed garlic
  • 1/2 tsp black pepper
  • 1 large onion, cut into quarters
  • 1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts cut into 1-2" chunks

Instructions

Marinade

  • Whisk together the first 6 ingredients in a small bowl
  • Put chicken and onions in a medium-sized bowl and cover with the marinade. Toss to coat
  • Let sit for at least 30 minutes but no more than 3 hours. The acids in the citrus cans start to cook the meat if you let marinade for too long.
  • If you want to make a sauce from the marinade, please see important notes below.

Assembling Skewers

  • Thread the marinaded chicken pieces onto the skewers with the marinated onions and veggies of your choice. Alternating as you go.
  • Discard the marinade

Grill

  • Preheat the grill to medium-high heat. You can place the skewers on direct heat if you want a char but only for a minute on each side and then cook with indirect heat as you want to make sure that your chicken is cooked through. With an internal temperature of 165°

Notes

What to add to the chicken?
  • cherry tomatoes
  • red bell pepper
  • yellow bell pepper
  • green bell pepper
  • mushrooms
  • red onion
  • pineapple
  • zucchini
  • parboiled red potatoes
  • green onions
  • corn cob pieces
Actually, anything that sounds good to you from the garden works!
If you want to prepare a sauce to serve with your kabobs, double the recipe and transfer half of the marinade to a small cooking pot, and simmer on medium heat. Add 1 tsp. of corn starch and whisk into the sauce to thicken. It is very important that you do this before you put the chicken into the entire marinade. Once the raw chicken has been in the marinade, it is no longer safe for consumption.
Yum

Assembling the Chicken Kabobs

Thread the marinaded chicken pieces onto the skewers with the veggies of your choice.

Handy isn’t much of a vegetable guy so we are pretty plain here but these are some other ideas for adding colorful veggies to your chicken kebabs:

  • Cherry Tomatoes
  • Red Bell Pepper
  • Yellow Bell Pepper
  • Green Bell Pepper
  • Mushrooms
  • Red Onion
  • Pineapple
  • Zucchini
  • Parboiled Red Potatoes
  • Green Onions

I add some of my veggies to my marinade like the onions for added flavor, You can add whatever you like to the marinade as well or just put them on your skewer as is.

If you like spicy flavors you could add crushed red pepper flakes and/or hot sauce to the marinated chicken breasts

I don’t use wooden skewers but if you do soak them in water for about an hour so they don’t burn on the grill.

We use flat metal skewers.

They ensure that the meat and vegetables don’t roll around on the skewer. Allows for nice even cooking

“Eating Outdoors makes for good health and long life and good temper, everyone knows that”

-Elsie de Wolfe

Fun Food

The best part of kabobs is that they can be made ahead of time and everyone can make their own kabobs to suit their own taste buds.

chicken and veggies on the skewers ready for the grill

This is an especially fun meal for kids.

I would definitely put chicken kabobs in the easy meals category.

How Long Do You Grill Chicken Kabobs?

You can put the chicken on the grill on direct heat if you want a quick char on your chicken kabobs but then place kabobs on indirect medium-high heat for 10-15 minutes to cook or until cooked through as chicken.

Once the chicken is done, take the kabobs off the grill and place them on a serving platter.

What Should You Serve with Chicken Kabobs?

Kabobs are a great summer meal for warm weather.

You can do most of the cooking on the grill.

You can also serve easy-to-prepare sides with kabobs.

I like to have either rice as a side but you can also have a large green salad or fruit salad to complement this dish.

Right now we have tomatoes, cucumbers, and onions in our garden so I could also make a salad with these ingredients tossed together with vinegar, oil, and some fresh herbs.

Other summer side dish ideas include; corn on the cob, potato salad, cole slaw, and rice balls, I think a cucumber yogurt dipping sauce might also be yummy for this recipe. 

Here is a great cucumber sauce recipe at Cookie + kate

You of course can make your kababs with beef (I would eliminate the orange juice and add 1/4 cup red wine vinegar, 1 tbsp dijon mustard, 2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce, 1 tsp thyme, and a bit more olive oil).

Shrimp is also another good choice for protein. You could use either marinade with shrimp.

Marinated chicken and veggies on skewers. Ready for the grill

This marinade is so good that you could use it for any chicken recipe. It doesn’t just have to be for chicken kabobs.

Hope you enjoy it!

Peace,

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2 Comments

  1. This sounds delicious! I just ordered the topiaries. Hugs to you

    1. You are so sweet. I’m actually making fake topiaries from the real ones that I killed. I was hoping to have them done for my table but my project turned out to be a little more labor intensive than I thought and I’ve had to order the boxwood three times. I should have just bought the ones off of Amazon 🙂 Thank you my friend.